scholarly journals Follow the majority? How voters coordinate electoral support to secure club goods

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Dominik Duell
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Club Goods ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Heterogeneous Groups ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Club Good

Abstract Voters often favor candidates who benefit them individually but may coordinate their support with their social group on other candidates in exchange for policies targeting their group. In a laboratory experiment, I induce group identities to investigate the behavior of voters facing such trade-offs. I find that groups with low within heterogeneity often secure the club good from a candidate who is also individually beneficial to a majority of the group. In more heterogeneous groups, coordination on that candidate often fails and while the group still receives club goods, it is from a candidate whose policies are otherwise individually costly to most of the group. The results highlight the role strategic considerations play in the formation of group-based electoral coalitions.

scholarly journals Discursive work in resisting stereotypic representations of the Chinese among Chinese students

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Zanne Seng ◽  
Mei Yuit Chan ◽  
Ngee Thai Yap
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Fragmented Self ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Discourse Strategies ◽  
Discourse Understanding ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Discursive Resources

AbstractThe negative effects of stereotyping arising from a victim’s acceptance and internalisation of stereotype identities are well-known. As stereotypes are created and maintained in discourse, understanding how targets of stereotyping employ discursive resources to resist the constraining structures of stereotypic identities imposed upon them can provide insight into the process of stereotyping and contribute to efforts to reduce the threat of stereotyping. We examined the strategies used by targets of stereotyping in contesting stereotypic representations of their social group through the mobilisation of a range of discourse strategies when presented with stereotyping attacks on the group. The findings revealed that stereotypes are subtle in nature and may not be easily recognised and hence, difficult to resist. Participants employed a number of discourse strategies to repair their fragmented self and group identities. However, in their attempt to maintain identity coherence, they ended up using stereotyping discourses themselves to devalue the perceived outgroup as well as subgroups they created within their own social group. The study highlights the complexity of stereotyping and its self-perpetuating character, and sheds light on the difficulty faced by targets of stereotyping discourse in reconciling their identities through intense discursive and identity work.

The Problem of Political Ignorance

2021 ◽  
pp. 156-187
Author(s):  
Maxime Lepoutre
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Group Cognition ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Epistemic Function ◽  
Scientific Questions

This chapter turns to the problem that political ignorance poses for democratic public discourse. It is often held (1) that ordinary citizens know too little to engage competently in public debates about politics and (2) that, because of the influence of group identity on political beliefs (or ‘group cognition’), this problematic ignorance is here to stay. The chapter argues that this influential worry fails, because it misunderstands the epistemic function of social group identities. The experiences involved in being a member of a particular social group are epistemically useful for deciding whose political judgment and what political information to trust. This is true even when it comes to scientific questions that bear on political issues, and even when people are dogmatically committed to their group perspectives. So, group cognition constitutes a useful tool for managing and overcoming political ignorance—and, by extension, for defusing the threat it raises for public discourse.

scholarly journals The transformative service paradox: the dilemma of wellbeing trade-offs

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-663
Author(s):  
Rebekah Russell–Bennett ◽  
Rory Mulcahy ◽  
Kate Letheren ◽  
Ryan McAndrew ◽  
Uwe Dulleck
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Implicit Assumption ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Physical Wellbeing ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Future Implication

PurposeA transformative service aims to improve wellbeing; however, current approaches have an implicit assumption that all wellbeing dimensions are equal and more dimensions led to higher wellbeing. The purpose of this paper is to present evidence for a new framework that identifies the paradox of competing wellbeing dimensions for both the individual and others in society – the transformative service paradox (TSP).Design/methodology/approachData is drawn from a mixed-method approach using qualitative (interviews) and quantitative data (lab experiment) in an electricity service context. The first study involves 45 household interviews (n = 118) and deals with the nature of trade-offs at the individual level to establish the concept of the TSP. The second study uses a behavioral economics laboratory experiment (n = 110) to test the self vs. other nature of the trade-off in day-to-day use of electricity.FindingsThe interviews and experiment identified that temporal (now vs. future) and beneficiary-level factors explain why individuals make wellbeing trade-offs for the transformative service of electricity. The laboratory experiment showed that when the future implication of the trade-off is made salient, consumers are more willing to forego physical wellbeing for environmental wellbeing, whereas when the “now” implication is more salient consumers forego financial wellbeing for physical wellbeing.Originality/valueThis research introduces the term “Transformative Service Paradox” and identifies two factors that explain why consumers make wellbeing trade-offs at the individual level and at the societal level; temporal (now vs. future) and wellbeing beneficiary.

Accepting or Resisting? Citizen Responses to Corruption Across Varying Levels of Competence and Corruption Prevalence

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 653-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia B Vera
Keyword(s):  
National Survey ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Information Credibility ◽  
Electoral Impact ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Vignette Experiment

The literature studying citizen responses to exposed political corruption is rapidly growing. While some studies explore how information credibility and group identities can reduce the electoral impact of the exposure of corruption, this article addresses different mechanisms for weak electoral accountability for corruption: candidate competence in public works provision and corruption prevalence. It uses a vignette experiment embedded in a national survey in Peru to isolate the causal effect of political corruption on electoral support. The results suggest that even types of corruption with side benefits would be harshly punished when attributed to incompetent politicians. They also indicate that while voters punish corruption more leniently when a candidate is competent, they respond negatively to corruption regardless of the prevalence of corruption, which casts doubt on the idea that voters in highly corrupt environments are acceptant of corruption.

Engineering popular support for long-ruling parties: the role of clientelism

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingjie Zeng
Keyword(s):  
Club Goods ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Combining Data ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
Ruling Party

AbstractIn electorally contested regimes, the incumbent party often uses clientelist exchanges to stay in power long after its underlying electoral support has evaporated. Existing studies failed to examine how the role of clientelism changes with the increasing tenure of the incumbent party. Combining data from the Afrobarometer project and information about partisan turnover, this article shows that the longer a party has remained in power, the more clientelist exchanges in the form of club goods and patronage will serve to bolster popular support for the ruling party. This is mainly because lengthy party duration facilitates the politicization of bureaucracy and other state resources essential for clientelist exchanges. Understanding the evolving role of clientelism under electoral contestation has profound implications for the study of phenomena such as dominant-party rule and democratic erosion.

scholarly journals United by the global COVID-19 pandemic: divided by our values and viral identities

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mimi E. Lam
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Civil Liberty ◽  
Viral Transmission ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Mobility Data ◽  
Situational Contexts ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe rapidly evolving landscape of the global COVID-19 pandemic necessitates urgent scientific advances and adaptive behavioural and policy responses to contain viral transmission, reduce impacts on public health, and minimise societal disruption. Epidemiological models of SARS-CoV-2 transmission are heavily influencing policy responses, forecasting viral infection, transmission, and death rates under simplified representations of human behaviour. They either assume that all members of a population or demographic group behave identically or design individual behavioural rules based on demographic and mobility data. In pluralistic societies, however, individual behavioural responses vary with personal values, situational contexts, and social group identities, affecting policy compliance and viral transmission. Here, I identify and explore the impacts of salient viral identities or “COVID-19 personality types” that are emerging and fluidly coalescing with each other and existing social and political identities. The resultant heightened inter-group differentiation explains the politicisation of the pandemic and rampant racism, discrimination, and conflict observed now and with epidemics historically. Recognising salient COVID-19 behavioural identities can improve scientific forecasting of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and the impact of containment measures, as well as tailor nuanced policy interventions and communications to enhance individual coping and compliance. As governments contemplate easing social-distancing restrictions, the science-society-policy nexus needs fortification through public participation, structured deliberation, and evidence-informed decision-making of policy options to negotiate the complex value trade-offs among public health, the market economy, and civil liberty. By thus valuing human diversity to foster societal resilience, an ethical agenda can be set with a united response to the COVID-19 pandemic and global commons challenges whose impacts are less immediate, but no less dire for humanity.

The Psychology of Repression and Polarization

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth R. Nugent
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Group Identification ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Group Identities

ABSTRACTHow does political polarization occur under repressive conditions? Drawing on psychological theories of social identity, the author posits that the nature of repression drives polarization. Repression alters group identities, changing the perceived distance between groups and ultimately shaping the level of affective and preference polarization between them through differentiation processes. The author tests the proposed causal relationship using mixed-method data and analysis.The results of a laboratory experiment reveal that exposure to a targeted repression prime results in greater in-group identification and polarization between groups, whereas exposure to a widespread prime results in decreased levels of these same measurements. The effect of the primes appears to be mediated through group identification. Case-study evidence of polarization between political opposition groups that were differently repressed in Egypt and Tunisia reinforces these results. The findings have implications for understanding how polarization, as conditioned by repression, may alter the likelihood of the cooperative behavior among opposition actors necessary for the success of democratic politics.

scholarly journals Condition-dependent trade-offs maintain honest signaling: A laboratory experiment

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Szabolcs Számadó ◽  
Flóra Samu ◽  
Károly Takács
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Honest Signaling ◽  
Handicap Principle ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Honest Signals ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

AbstractHow and why animals and humans signal reliably is a key issue in biology and social sciences. For many years the dominant paradigm in biology was the Handicap Principle. It claims a causal relationship between honesty and signal cost and thus predicts that honest signals have to be costly to produce. However, contrary to the Handicap Principle, game theoretical models predict that honest signaling is maintained by condition dependent signaling trade-offs and honest signals need not be costly at the equilibrium. Due to the difficulties of manipulating signal cost and signal trade-offs there is surprisingly little evidence to test these predictions either from biology or from social sciences. Here we conduct a human laboratory experiment with a two-factorial design to test the role of equilibrium signal cost vs. signalling trade-offs in the maintenance of honest communication. We have found that the trade-off condition has much higher influence on the reliability of communication than the equilibrium cost condition. The highest level of honesty was observed in the condition dependent trade-off condition as predicted by recent models. Negative production cost, i.e. fix benefit-contrary to the prediction of the Handicap Principle-promoted even higher level of honesty than the other type of costs under this condition.

scholarly journals Racial Polarization or Biracial Coalition? An Empirical Analysis of the Electoral Coalition of Winning Candidates in Urban Elections

2007 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 319-344
Author(s):  
James Martin Vanderleeuw ◽  
Baodong Paul Liu
Keyword(s):  
City Council ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Black Candidates ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Racial Context ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Racial Polarization ◽  
American Cities

Inspired by deracialization and black threat theories, this research uses the racial context of American cities to explain winning electoral coalitions in urban elections. A total of 137 municipal elections in New Orleans and Memphis between 1969 and 2003 are examined. The multiple regression results confirm the previous findings that black candidates are more likely than white candidates to win urban elections based on racial bloc voting, urban elections are more likely to be racially polarized in mayoral races than in city-council contests, and the competitiveness of elections reflected by the size of candidate pool shapes the needs for winning candidates to build biracial elections. The most important finding, however, is a nonlinear, half U-shaped relationship between racial polarization and the electorate’s racial makeup. This suggests that the deracialization strategy designed to reduce the negative effect of race in urban electoral campaigns is especially important when the electorate is heavily black. In this electoral setting, a substantial level of electoral support from voters of both racial groups is necessary for victory.

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